


Brush

by Quetzalcoatl



Category: Legend of Dragoon
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quetzalcoatl/pseuds/Quetzalcoatl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Lavitz Slambert arrives early to a tactical meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kazca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazca/gifts).



A ghost unfurled, vaporous tendrils grasping at the spaces between the air. It faded as it tumbled downwards, ultimately vanishing in a ruffle of weathered pages. A young man, clad in verdant armor dented but remarkably polished, watched the spectre's spiral and flow. Its movement was rhythmic and entrancing, and he felt commune in its wispy brevity. Like him, it was vigorous in its vitality; like it he knew he would one day be cut short in the chill of the dawn. With worried hesitance, the knight allowed his eyes to creep along its ethereal trail to the grim, taut ledges that birthed such phantoms. As his pilfered glance lingered, a monstrous crimson salamander peered out from the cavern nestled between the ledges. It slid its head across first the upper then the lower, leaving a wet trail in its wake. The ledges crumbled and crashed in meeting as the king's mouth closed, wordlessly considering the task at hand.  
For a moment as brief as a babe's first breath yet long as its last, the youth fancied the rough touch of those stony lips. King Albert was lost to his concerns this morning, his eyes grinding against the maps which fluttered endlessly along his war-room table. His fingers, rough and latticed by fencing scars, stroked and manipulated the paper as he moved deftly from north to south, east to west of the kingdom. Black pegs pooled like scabs along the borders of the Duchy, denoting the dark tide of Doel's Sandoran dissenters. Letting that name pass through his own inner sanctum caused a slight convulsion to seep from the young knight's crown, growing as it passed through his breastplate and rattled his greaves. Albert paid him no mind; his young friend was given to engrossing himself in study and strategy.

A smirk wedged its way between Lavitz's lips and teeth as he remembered the first time he'd met Albert: it was just days after the assassination of King Carlos, his father, and the child prince was nowhere to be found. The Slambert family was not well known at the time, yet they- like virtually everyone in Serdio- were frantically searching. It would not do for Serdio to lose both King and Prince within such a short span. Much to the kingdom's surprise, it was the Slambert's boy who found the king: Lavitz, at the time a child himself, barely twelve and only eight years the prince's senior. Eager to engage in what he saw as an elaborate game of hide-and-seek, he found Albert's tiny form wedged beneath some submerged roots at the river's edge. He remembered clambering down to pluck the prince from the tangled reeds, recalled the striking clarity of his widened eyes- eyes the color of honeyed tea, eyes which now flicked quickly up with a questioning glance before skittering away to study Sandoran formations.  
Lavitz, tense in his friend's unusual silence, took a moment to tug at his straps and fiddle with his fastenings, ensuring his armor was in perfect presentation. He admired the king's profile as he did so: the charmingly narrow nose, the carefully kept hair- hair that looked as soft as down and shone warmly in the torchlight. Hair that begged to be stroked and fussed over. It curled around the blocky shoulders borrowed from his father; it hugged the gentle slope of cheeks shaped by his mother. It was as if some exotic creature coiled there, and though he longed to run his hands over its enticing length he feared the sting of hidden teeth. As the knight watched on, an exasperated sigh fled his companion – a sorrowful airy nocturne.

Wanting nothing more than to comfort- nay, coddle- his comrade, Lavitz faced an army of apprehension. He admired and respected King Albert as well as any other of the newly forged Knights of Basil, yet there were intimate facets at play: while the whole of the Duchy loved their indomitable leader, Lavitz loved him. Steeling himself, the knight glanced furtively at the door – the rest of the knights and that infernal Noish were soon to enter – then moved as if to take his honored place at Albert's right. He would reach out, as if to catch himself, and for one infinitesimal moment he would caress that fretting, tortured hand and attempt to restore some calm to the clearly perturbed face.  
Lavitz nearly brushed Albert as he passed; his mounting trepidation nearly overtook him. Despite his delicate, measured movement there was an almost audible clanking such did his arm shake. The clinking and rattling of the armor intensified as the youth's hand crept precariously into the thinned air: it was the barest of motions, ostensibly accidental. For just a fraction of a second, Lavitz's palm sought the mountainous knuckles of Albert's busy hand, his fingers a flock of starlings daring the pit of the valleys between. He was immediately aware of the lunacy of the gesture, as there was nothing to grasp desperately at: no dropped quill or misplaced coin, not even a stray droplet of wax or a confuscating patch of dust.  
As the youth sat paralyzed with worry and nauseous with regret, he realized two peculiar things: first that Albert did not recoil as if bitten by an assassin cock, but rather paid him no discernible notice. Second, and most infinitely baffling, he deliberately raised his index finger. It was not a pushing or warning motion, or a reflexive flinch, but rather an expression of acceptance. It moved almost imperceptibly, seeming to imply a sense of desire in its subtle pressing against the softer portions of his palm. Despite the cold skin the touch was warm, sending a cascade of unmentionable sensation rippling throughout the knight's body. The pair made no eye contact, but rather looked up as the rest of the knights entered, seeming as nothing more than comrades discussing the coming war.


End file.
